Cesar De Leon, bottom, shakes hands with Jeremy Smith at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2017. Mexico opened 50 "Advocacy Centers" at Mexican Consulates across the United State on March 3, 2017. Ray Whitehouse / for the San Antonio Express-News less

Cesar De Leon, bottom, shakes hands with Jeremy Smith at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2017. Mexico opened 50 "Advocacy Centers" at Mexican Consulates across the United State on March ... more

Photo: Ray Whitehouse, Photographer / For The San Antonio Express-New

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Cesar De Leon, left, speaks with Pedro Ledezma at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2017. Mexico opened 50 "Advocacy Centers" at Mexican Consulates across the United State on March 3, 2017. Ray Whitehouse / for the San Antonio Express-News less

Cesar De Leon, left, speaks with Pedro Ledezma at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2017. Mexico opened 50 "Advocacy Centers" at Mexican Consulates across the United State on March 3, ... more

Photo: Ray Whitehouse, Photographer / For The San Antonio Express-New

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Jose Antonio Larios Ponce, deputy consul for the Mexican Consulate, speaks during a press conference announcing 50 "Advocacy Centers" at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2017. Ray Whitehouse / for the San Antonio Express-News less

Jose Antonio Larios Ponce, deputy consul for the Mexican Consulate, speaks during a press conference announcing 50 "Advocacy Centers" at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2017. Ray ... more

Photo: Ray Whitehouse, Photographer / For The San Antonio Express-New

Image 4 of 6

Cesar De Leon, left, speaks with Pedro Ledezma at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2017. Mexico opened 50 "Advocacy Centers" at Mexican Consulates across the United State on March 3, 2017. Ray Whitehouse / for the San Antonio Express-News less

Cesar De Leon, left, speaks with Pedro Ledezma at the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas on March 3, 2017. Mexico opened 50 "Advocacy Centers" at Mexican Consulates across the United State on March 3, ... more

Photo: Ray Whitehouse, Photographer / For The San Antonio Express-New

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Advocacy centers across the U.S. are “a response that the government of Mexico is giving to this policy of uncertainty and fear,” Larios said, referring to President Donald Trump’s stance on immigration.

Advocacy centers across the U.S. are “a response that the government of Mexico is giving to this policy of uncertainty and fear,” Larios said, referring to President Donald Trump’s stance on immigration.

Photo: Ray Whitehouse / For The San Antonio Express-New

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José Antonio Larios, Mexico’s acting consul in San Antonio (back right), speaks on the opening of an advocacy center for Mexican citizens who have questions about their status in the U.S.

José Antonio Larios, Mexico’s acting consul in San Antonio (back right), speaks on the opening of an advocacy center for Mexican citizens who have questions about their status in the U.S.

The Mexican government is bolstering the services available to its citizens living in the U.S., including legal representation, in response to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

As part of the push, the consulate general in San Antonio on Friday opened an advocacy center for Mexican citizens who have questions about their status in the U.S. Mexico’s foreign ministry has set aside 1 billion pesos, about $51 million, to open 50 advocacy centers across the U.S., said San Antonio’s acting consul, José Antonio Larios.

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“This is a response that the government of Mexico is giving to this policy of uncertainty and fear,” Larios said. “We maintain a cordial relationship (with the U.S.), but we also need to be very active and proactive in the defense of Mexican migrants.”

The foreign ministry has created a toll-free hotline for Mexican citizens. And Mexican consulates across the U.S. are increasing their spending on legal representation for those facing deportation, holding know-your-rights informational sessions and workshops on obtaining U.S. citizenship.

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The toll-free number for Mexican citizens in the U.S.: 1-855-463-6395

They also are launching a campaign to inform people about how to avoid deportation and how to prepare a contingency plan if they’re kicked out of the country.

Immigrants facing deportation have a right to due process, and they sometimes don’t realize that they have a pathway to legal status, said state Rep. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, who works with the consul general on immigration issues.

“There are defenses that immigrants have that often they don’t know the answers to, because they’re not lawyers,” Gutierrez said.

Jeremy Smith, a 19-year-old from Guadalajara, Mexico, who has a work permit under former President Barack Obama’s deferred action program for young undocumented immigrants, went to the consulate Friday to ask whether he’d be allowed to travel outside the country. Smith, who works at a day care and until recently studied at Northwest Vista College, said he has an opportunity to play soccer in Spain and wanted to know if he’ll be allowed back into the country.

Immigrants who spend a year in the U.S. without permission invoke a 10-year ban from coming back once they leave.

“I don’t think I would be able to know anything, honestly, without these options that are now provided to us by the consulate,” he said. “You can ask Google the question, but you’re not going to get the correct answer, you’re not going to get a one-on-one.”

Consular officials will also increase their visits to federal, state and local jails and detention centers, Larios said.

“Our consular officials … will give particular attention to identifying any kind of irregularity or abuse during the apprehension and detention of the people interviewed to offer legal services,” he said.

The advocacy centers program was announced by Mexico last year after Trump campaigned on a promise to increase deportations. Since his inauguration, Trump has signed executive orders and his Homeland Security secretary has issued memos that allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to target immigrants who are in the country illegally but under past administrations had been ignored.

The changes were praised by the union representing ICE officers and restrictionist groups who had said the Obama administration put too many limits on who can be deported. Obama focused deportations on undocumented immigrants with criminal violations, ultimately deporting more than 2.5 million people, the most in history.

Immigration lawyers and activists said the new policy under Trump casts too wide a net and will result in the separation of families and removal of longtime members of the community.

Among the proposed policy changes is one that would allow ICE to deport immigrants who can’t prove they’ve been in the U.S. more than two years without going before an immigration judge.

The new program is the Mexican government “putting the (Trump) administration on notice,” said Alonzo Peña, ICE’s former deputy director, who has worked in Mexico.

It’s been more than a decade since Mexico created outrage in the U.S. by publishing a pamphlet that gave guidance to immigrants coming here illegally. The pamphlets warned about the dangers presented by smugglers and the elements, and it advised immigrants of their rights.

More recently, Mexican authorities have worked closely with their counterparts in the U.S. on immigration issues, Peña said. Mexican consular officials could slow the deportation process, clogging up U.S. immigration institutions.

“It was a very open and cooperative relationship to help repatriate these (Mexican) citizens that the U.S. government wanted to return to Mexico,” he said. “I think that relationship is going to be harmed by what this administration is doing, and it will be evident by how that cooperation is in the future.”

Smith, the soccer player hopeful from Guadalajara, received some bad news. A lawyer told him that deferred action allows him to travel only to and from his home country of Mexico. If he goes to Spain, he likely won’t be able to return to his family and girlfriend in the U.S. The lawyer did, however, point out some potential avenues for visas that left Smith hopeful.

“I’m going to go home right now and talk to my father about it, so I’m probably not going to end up doing that,” Smith said Friday evening of his possible move abroad. “I really want to go, but everything happens for a reason in my opinion, and that’s the way I see everything.”